1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a photograph printing system, and more particularly to a photograph printing system capable of quickly making a hard copy such as a photoprint, by utilizing a film processor with an image pickup unit which scans the image on the film and converts it into an electrical signal.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a photo laboratory, a photographic film, e.g. negative film, is developed by a film processor. The developed negative film is placed in a printer or a printer/processor, wherein the images of original frames recorded on the negative film are projected onto a color paper to make photoprints.
Such a photograph printing system is disadvantageous in that a negative film cannot be placed in to a printer or printer/processor until it has been developed by the film processor. As shown in FIG. 7, making photoprints with a conventional photograph printing system includes a film development process, a film setting process, a print process, a paper development process, and a cutting process. It takes about 20 minutes to develop a customer deposited exposed negative film and obtain final photoprints. If the customer wishes to leave with the photoprints, he is forced to wait at least 20 minutes. Furthermore, it is necessary to manually place a developed negative film in a printer or printer/processor and damage of the film may occur during such manual handling.
As shown in FIG. 8, it is known that a film processor and printer/processor may be coupled together to feed a negative film developed by the film processor directly to the printer/processor, thereby lessening the processing time. In this case, however, it is necessary to provide a film guide mechanism and the like for automatically feeding a developed negative film from the film processor to the film carrier of the printer/processor. Such a guide mechanism serves to complicate the system structure.